If the North Korean government really wanted to scare the pants off of the South, it could do the one really dangerous thing that is truly within its power; collapse. The cold war serves both sides well. If the rulers of the north simply quit their offices and opened their borders the cost to the South and its allies would exceed all but the most fanciful military scenarios.

The reunification of Germany was cheap by comparison. The East Germans might have been hungry for freedom, but they weren't starving to death. Hence, it's in the economic interest of South Korea and the US to keep the North Korean government in place, but tame enough not to do anything rash. The losers in this calculation are the poor people of North Korea who are trapped in some sort of Kafkaesque specimen jar of Stalinism.

When did The Economist ever write an article on the (ex) "terrible two" in Egypt, Gamal and Hosni Mubarak? Different yardsticks for similar situations involving outrageous nepotism, maybe?

South Korea has accomplished so much in the recent years, their economy has surpassed the trillion dollar mark, Seoul is among the most beautiful and developed cities in the world, HDI is higher than some western European countries as are PISA scores, Korean wave is spreading their culture. All of that progress could be lost at the hands of those lunatics in the North. I think the best we can hope for is for Dear Leader to die of old age or heart attack, maybe the rest of the regime will go down with him.

Headline in 'Today' newspaper in Singapore this morning:

"Seen in Singapore: Kim Jong Il's son". Evidently Jong Il's second son Kim Jong Chol was in Singapore to attend an Eric Clapton concert. He is said to have attended a Clapton concert in Germany in 2006. Interesting.

See http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC110217-0000244/Seen-in-Singapore--Ki...

@ Beta46
Although I agree that the regime of Hosni Mubarak deserved more criticism I must also say that the one in North Korea is of a totally different magnitude. I recommend checking a torrent site and downloading the documentary on North Korea by National Geographic. It is truly unbelieveable what the Kims are doing to their own population...

So. What exactly is going to happen here? People have been speaking about the long-term non-viability of the North Korean regime for 30 years, ever since the South began to out-pace it economically in the late 1970's. The long term has finally become the short term. It seem to me that, like so many metastable situations, the longer the "experts" manage to stall the inevitable, the worse the convolutions and the suffering when the collapse finally hits.

Best to simply cut North Korea off completely. No talks, no food, no fuel, no anything. Let China play the balancing game (and absorb the costs) with North Korea if it wants to. Then South Korea, the United States and the rest of the world can have some sort of plan ready to go to help mitigate the human catastrophe that will surely follow the final and inevitable collapse of this misbegotten system.

I think it might be a reasonable response to stockpile foods and other things which would be needed should the North suddenly collapse. Also, we should have funds ready for the rebuilding which would then be needed.

Unfortunately, prior to a collapse, dictatorships will often initiate some military action in order to redirect attention away from their problems. It worked for Saddam Hussein in 1980.

@tintifaxx: "I recommend checking a torrent site and downloading the documentary on North Korea by National Geographic."

It would be interesting to put that up against another article that National Geographic did about North Korea, back in the 1960s. In that article, there was nothing but glowing praise for how happy and prosperous the North Koreans were, how no one was hungry, how everything was free, how everyone loved working, how the country was well on its way to being self-sufficient in everything. The only problem mentioned was that their locally-made electric toasters weren't quite as good a quality as the foreign ones, but they would be soon.

On the one hand, the tale of the two Geographics is just an interesting historical comparison. On the other hand, looking at the many articles in that magazine about communist countries back in those days, it's clear that the writers were either completely duped by what anyone should have seen was a fraud, or they were so enamored of their own personal starry-eyed notions of communism that they wrote deliberate propaganda to convince Americans that communism was the path to true prosperity and equality. Thankfully they did not entirely succeed at winning Americans over to communism, despite all the pretty color pictures, or else today the Mexicans would be defending their northern border against Americans trying to sneak in from the north.

A note to D. Sherman,

Your observation is interesting. I recall a 1970's (?) vintage Geographic article that was glowing in its praise of Cuba (everybody had great teeth!). When the authors were called on it they said that they had to promise to say nice things about the place in order to gain access to the country. They sold their souls, as it were.

About those "great teeth"; sugar was strictly for hard currency export and was highly rationed among the Cuban population. That's why Cubans had great teeth.